hive robbing video

[tandemrx]

Not very good quality videos, but not something I was expecting at the time.  2 of our hives were actively being robbed.  Most notable thing other than frenetic activity at the entrance was the bees trying to get into any crack that existed, front or back or side of the hive (whether they could actually fit or not – they just persistently tried to get in the cracks or in any place that looked like it might be an entrance).

It makes sense as there clearly is a dearth going on and we don't have much goldenrod near us so even that source is not that useful for our bees.

If you look closely you can see little balls of fighting bees . . . on the first hive there is one of these balls that falls off the face of the hive and another that is about to fall of front of hive.   On the second smaller hive you can see little balls of fighting bees in clumps in front of the hives.  This only got worse over time.

The aftermath was a lot of dead bees in front of the hives the next day.

We didn't have our bee suits (just gloves and veil with bike shorts and jerseys) as we were just biking out to put some sugar syrup in the feeder of the small hive that we just caught as a swarm.  So my wife got stung under her arm from us being a bit bold around all those flying fighting bees (ouch).

I came back a bit later and the fighting escalated so I put wet sheets over the hives and closed all the entrances down further to a single entrance the width of a single bee.  It mostly worked except that even the next day when I took the sheets away there was some heavy fighting at the entrances and bees trying to get into any crack that they thought might get them into the hive.  I felt I had to take the sheets away because a storm was coming.

Today things are a little bit better but I still have the entrances shut down to single bee size.  Still some fighting at both hives.

Robbing video:

honey bee hive robbing

hives with wet sheet method about 1.5 hours later:

post robbing video

FWIW

[Shawn]

Nice video. Funny how one hive is being robbed and one hive has nothing going on. 

[AllenF]

It is the season for robbing.         And feeding makes it worse.  I fed half the hives this morning, got them all worked up.  They were all calm in half an hour after they figured out they were not going to get extra food from someone else.   Keep in mind reduce, reduce, reduce.   I like that chicken waterer for bee water.

[tandemrx]

The big hive that was being robbed didn't have a feeder on it.  Interestingly there was a feeder on the hive right next to it (which I thought was a weaker hive - so I would have expected it to get robbed) and it wasn't being robbed.

I did reduce all my hives down quite a bit (and the robbed ones to one-bee size opening).

It would have seemed like we had a good august in southern WI.  Never really hit really dry conditions . . . but this certainly happened at what I would have guessed was the peak of what dearth there is this year.  So, it did make sense.

I felt I had to put the feeder on the new swarm.  It was soooooooo late that I doubted it had any chance unless fed heavily . . . and even then I may have to combine with another hive.

Oh well.  We'll see what that robbing meant to the hives this weekend since it is harvest weekend.

[slacker361]

I saw that on my hive just last weekend, i thought is was nurse bees taking cleansing flights. Hmmm the closest hive is over a half a mile away , will they travel that far to rob?